He thought about her a great deal as he sat drinking his tea. It was not good tea. It was weak and watery, just as a slight aroma of mustiness clung to the solitary biscuit which was served with it. The skimmed milk which was soberly spoken of as cream, the loaf of sugar which was doled out so sparingly, the old Coalport so pathetically chipped and cracked, all united to confirm his earlier impressions of a genteel poverty grimly accepted.
He wondered how the girl could stand it, and he could foretell what it would do to her. She would get like the other two in time. The years would pinch her in body and soul alike. Her color would fade and the fuller line of lip and throat would wither. Yet in her face he had detected something unawakened and anticipatory, something which made that grim house oppress him afresh with its sheathed claws of cruelty.
He was surprised to see Lavinia Keswick, having drunk her cup of tea and eaten her wafer, rise grimly from her chair and as grimly leave their presence. Conkling surmised that she was already resolutely removing the plum-colored moiré and making ready for a delayed return to her scuffle hoe.
It was not until Georgina Keswick was alone with her guest that she returned to the matter uppermost in her mind.
“You have doubtless heard of my brother, Kendal Keswick, in the art world?”
She paused, as though waiting for the name to strike home. But to Conkling it meant nothing. For a moment the tragic pale eyes in the tragic old face took on a deeper pathos.
“He was an artist himself in his time,” she stiffly acknowledged. “But he was also a collector.”
“He would be before my time,” mercifully explained the young man, puzzled by the air of hesitancy which had overtaken the rusty old crow confronting him.
“I presume so,” acknowledged the woman in black, contriving to make her survey of Conkling’s still youthful figure a slightly contemptuous one.
“You spoke of him as a collector,” Conkling found the heart to remind her, out of the ensuing silence. “And that naturally prompts me to ask what became of his collection.”